Page 130 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 5. Performance and perceptions of silence 117

A: Because of the lack of preparation, pretty difficult reading and my
English competence, I mean the fact that I am not used to this kind
of reading, it is quite hard for me to express myself.

Her lack of language to handle academic concepts in history and education, espe-
cially in the Australian context, is likely to have prevented her from participating
as actively as she would have done in other contexts (see Section 5.4.5 below). As a
matter of fact, there were a few incidents which suggested that Aya was not able to
keep up with the subject in terms of her academic English. The following excerpt
gives one such example:

(9) [Interaction: Aya]

1 Aya: U:m (0.4) prime focus in the life of those
-> 2 schools was (0.3) the literal, (0.2) and
3 performance of the school assembly in the
4 great hall.
5 (0.6)
-> 6 Lect: U:m (0.2) that doesn’t quite make sense
7 I don’t think, (1.1) ( ) =what the:
8 (0.3) do you remember what that was about?
9 (0.4) than: the spelling.
10 Aya: I thought was um: (0.6) u:m (0.7) like
11 (0.3) (guess) by children: (0.6) reading,
12 (0.4)listening,
13 Lect: R[i:ght.]
14 Aya: ([probab]ly,)
15 Lect: Maybe: (.) to do with literature or: (0.3)
16 the (treading) debate ( ) but
17 I’m not quite sure.
18 (1.0)
19 Kathy: ((clears throat ))
20 Lect: (Good),=
21 Aya: =Um (0.3) the curriculum of these schools
22 was dominated by the literary and
23 historical subjects ((Aya reads on))

Here, Aya is giving a presentation on one of the reading materials in the History of
Secondary Education class, and reading out what she has on her handout in lines
1 to 4. However, her sentence does not make sense and Dr. Lucas points this out
by asking her what this sentence is about (lines 6–9). Aya explains her interpreta-
tion, but she does not seem to recognise the problem of “literal” in the sentence
under question. Dr. Lucas’ lengthened “Ri:ght” in line 13 suggests that he under-